Animal pets particularly dogs and cats, are usually fed from a bowl shaped container made of plastic or ceramic materials. Often the animal does not completely finish the food placed in the container and unless that food is immediately removed by washing, the leftover food tends to adhere to the surface of the container, drys, and becomes relatively hard to remove by usual washing methods. Particularly bothersome is moist canned pet food, especially those containing fish ingredients which create an unpleasant odor and stick to the surface of the feeding container with such tenacity as to require scouring and scrubbing to remove the leftover food.
It has been proposed that disposable liners for such pet feeding containers be used. Such a prior proposed re-usable holder supporting a disposable liner is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,653,362. A single liner was placed in the holder and the edge portions of the liner were protected by recessing the liner edge portions below an uppermost edge of the holder. This was for the purpose of preventing mutilation of the exposed edge of the liner which might become mixed with the food in the disposable liner.
When disposable replaceable liners were associated with a holder, problems occured in the removal of the liner. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,527,192 this problem was solved by providing an air trap between the bottom wall of the liner and the bottom wall of the receptacle. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,698,594 a disposable liner was temporarily attached to the receptacle by an adhesive and was then removed by a flip string or a cutaway portion of the receptacle.
Thus, while prior proposed uses of disposable liners with re-usable holders avoided the cleaning and scrubbing of the feeding dish, the use of such liners presented additional problems relating to the association of the disposable liners with the re-usable holders.